New Supernova Is The Farthest Ever Found

This
image shows the Hubble Space Telescope's view of Supernova
UDS10Wil more than 10 billion years ago.NASA and ESA

Astronomers have spotted the most distant massive star explosion
of its kind, a supernova that could help scientists better
understand the nature of the universe.

Using the Hubble
Space Telescope, scientists recently caught sight of
Supernova UDS10Wil (nicknamed SN Wilson) which exploded more than
10 billion years ago. It took more than 10 billion years for the
light of this violent star explosion to reach Earth.

SN Wilson is known as a Type Ia supernova — a particular kind of
star explosion that gives scientists a sense of how the universe
has expanded over time.

"This new distance record holder opens a window into the early
universe, offering important new insights into how these stars
explode," research leader David Jones of Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore, Md., said in a statement. "We can test theories
about how reliable these detonations are for understanding the
evolution of the universe and its expansion." [See
Amazing Pictures of Supernovas]

SN Wilson is only four percent more distant than
the last most distant supernova of its kind found by Hubble,
NASA
officials said in a statement. However, that is still 350 million
years further back in time than any other previously found star
explosion.

By understanding when massive stars began exploding, scientists
can get a sense of how quickly the universe was seeded with the
elements needed to create planets and other cosmic bodies.

"If supernovae were popcorn, the question is how long before they
start popping?" Adam Riess, an astronomer at the Space Telescope
Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., said in a statement. "You
may have different theories about what is going on in the kernel.
If you see when the first kernels popped and how often they
popped, it tells you something important about the process of
popping corn."

This work also might contribute to other work being done on what
triggers these massive explosions, a question that has
plagued astronomers since the discovery of Type Ia supernovas.

This discovery is also part of a three-year-initiative by the
Hubble program to find the most distant supernovas. Scientists
with the program hope to understand if the star explosions have
changed in some way since the Big Bang birthed the universe 13.8
billion years ago.

The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in 1990. It is expected
to continue functioning for the next five years or so, and its
successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled for
launch in 2018.

The new findings will be published in an upcoming issue of "The
Astrophysical Journal."